


Say It With Flowers

by afteriwake



Series: The Summer Of 100 Surprise Stories - Summer 2018 [15]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Journalism, Bones Is A Photojournalist, Bones is So Done, Corsages, F/M, First Meetings, Flirting, Flowers, Language of Flowers, Mentioned James T. Kirk/Spock, Mentioned Joanna McCoy, Mild Language, Molly Owns A Flower Shop, POV Bones, exchanging numbers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 09:49:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14892329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: Bones heads to a florist shop his daughter recommended and gets more than he bargained for.





	Say It With Flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreamin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/gifts).



> So I had a flower shop AU saved for ages that, while I liked the original prompt (“Flowershop AU / Person A owns a flower shop and person B comes storming in one day, slaps 20 bucks on the counter and says 'How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower?'”), it was the furthered discussion of which flower to use to passive-aggressively say "fuck you" and the art that went with it that caught my attention (“ _so you’d need a bouquet of geraniums {stupidity}, foxglove {insincerity}, meadowsweet {uselessness}, yellow carnations {you have disappointed me}, and orange lilies {hatred}. it would be quite striking! and full of loathing._ )” I modified the prompt once it was claimed by **Dreamin** for McMolly but used the flower arrangement.

That fool friend of his. One of these days, these assignments he managed to get them were going to get them killed. And then. And then! He “conveniently” forgot it was the night of his wedding rehearsal dinner and he’d promised he’d get an extra special bouquet for Spock, and could Bones “please do him a favor and get it for him, pretty please, something pretty and extra special, I’ll do your paperwork I promise.”

Oh, it’d be extra special, all right. Mark his words…he’d get back to the office after the dinner and his paperwork would still be there and Spock would think his fiance was just the best.

Good thing his daughter was obsessed with the Victorian era now. Gave him an excuse to do something stupid like learn the language of the flower. Her mom had no idea the bouquets his daughter got were all secretly messaged, and the ones he got back...if there was ever a custody battle, well, he’d have some dirt, not just with what the flowers said but the notes from the florist, too.

Speaking of, where was this woman’s shop at again? He had to admit, he’d been in San Francisco for ten years and Joanna had been there two and she knew so many more places than he did.

The only, _only_ reason his daughter wasn’t cooling her teenage heels in Georgia was because her mother married one of those Silicon Valley types who just so happened to have housing outside of San Francisco. And when his work with the paper let him have spare time in San Francisco, he took advantage of seeing his daughter as often as possible. In fact, he’d managed to wheedle it so she could be his plus one tonight. So that meant two sets of flowers: roses to appease the hell-beast known as Joanna’s mother and the appropriate way to tell his best friend to fuck off.

Hopefully the flowers Joanna picked out were actually in stock at this florist he was heading to.

Finally he found the place, a little hole in the wall that was actually only a few blocks away from the newspaper office. He saw a woman put on a helmet before hoping on a moped. The woman looked familiar with her natural hair and the faint freckles on her nose. She may have been a friend of Sulu’s, who flirted with Nyota when dropping off the flower for him and everyone else in the office. Maybe this place was better than he thought if Spock used it to make the offices hospitable.

“Sally!”

A woman burst out of the door and he stopped in his tracks. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail and wisps were falling down out of it, framing her face. Even with the frown on her face he could see she had warm brown eyes and a cute nose. “She have a moped?” he asked.

She blinked and turned to him. “She’s off on it, isn’t she?” she said with a sigh.

“Just missed her,” he said, giving her a small smile. Cute British accent, too. Reminded him of Carol’s.

“Bugger,” she said under her breath. “She forgot the card for Mr. Spock’s normal delivery.”

“Well, it just so happens I’m here to get some flowers on behalf of his fiance for the wedding rehearsal dinner tonight,” he said, pushing his hands in the pockets of his coat out a bit. “I can take it back to the office if that’s where she was headed.”

The woman gave him a grateful look. “Oh, would you? I’d appreciate it.”

“Yeah, anything to help a small business owner like yourself,” he said, removing a hand. “You _are_ the owner, right?”

“Molly Hooper,” she said with a smile, shaking his hand.

“Leonard McCoy,” he said as he encased her hand in a firm grip.

“Oh, you’re Joanna’s father!” she said, her eyes widening. “I love seeing what she comes up with for you. She must really hate someone who isn’t you.”

“Cracked our code, did you?” he said, reluctantly letting go of her hand. “It’s her mom. She’s got to live with her because I’m out of town a lot. Photojournalist and all.”

“Ah.” She gave him a wider smile. “Well, if you’d like, I can help you get something lovely for her as well.”

“Killing two birds with one stone,” he said with a nod. “I approve.” They entered the store and he saw not only refrigerated bouquets and arrangements but a huge selection of fresh cut flowers as well. “Would it be too much to see if you have a wrist corsage?”

“It’s just about prom season so we have plenty,” she said with a laugh, looking at him over her shoulder. “Do you know what colour dress the recipient will be wearing?”

“Navy blue,” he replied.

“Than perhaps a white orchid and rose one. I have just the perfect one, actually. She went behind a workstation and looked at him. “Now then. What bouquet would you like for Joanna?”

“Actually, I’m trying to appease her mom with long stemmed white roses since it’s a school night,” he said.

“Sensible idea,” Molly said with a nod. “A dozen, I assume?”

“Yes, please.”

“And the other bouquet?” she asked, pulling a small notepad towards her.

“Joanna said geraniums, foxglove, meadowsweet and yellow carnations,” he said after checking the note he’d scribbled after talking to her on the phone.

Molly looked up, pursing her lips. “Toss in some orange lilies and it would be a rather striking way of telling someone to passive-aggressively fuck off,” she said. “Are you sure they aren’t for her mum?”

Bones chuckled. “No. The idiot reporter getting married to Mr. Spock, who’s sending us off to Sudan for an assignment. He knows I have a kid and I said no more war zones.”

“Extra orange lilies at no charge,” she said, looking back at her notepad. “And...” She thought for a moment, and then smiled. “Let me whip up a bit of a good luck charm. I mean, if you’d like. On the house, of course.”

“If you think I could use it, darlin’,” he said with a nod. He watched her flutter about the shop, gathering different flowers. Some he recognized straight off, like the orange lilies and the yellow carnations. The rest, though…

By the time she was done, there was a dozen roses in a box for the harpy, a lovely wrist corsage for Joanna, the bouquet for Spock from Kirk, which he had to admit looked better than he’d expected, and a small corsage to be pinned to his suit. Molly was doing that right now and he had to admit, she smelled nice. “Cornelian cherry, chamomile, dark purple Echites, mistletoe, nemophilia, oak leave and a white clover.” She pinned it onto his suit and then smoothed his jacket a bit. “More like ‘come back safely and be brave’ than good luck, I suppose.”

He nodded, knowing that all but the white clover meant that. The white clover meant there was interest. “Maybe when I come back, I could take you out to dinner and we could talk? I’ll tell you how Kirk likes the bouquet.”

“Oh!” she said, her eyes widening, and then a wide smile on her face. “I’d like that very much. Thank you, Mr. McCoy.”

“Leonard, please,” he said with a grin. “And I can call you Molly?”

“Absolutely,” she said. She handed him an envelope, and then took a small card and wrote a phone number on it. “For when you get back. So you can call me. I mean, _call_ me, call me, not just call me Molly. I mean...”

“I look forward to seeing you again, Molly,” he said with a nod, gathering up half the flowers while she took the other half and they went to the register. It could be a very interesting date indeed...


End file.
